Europe ready to help more, insist on Asian responsibility
Europe ready to help more, insist on Asian responsibility
SINGAPORE (AFP): Europe is ready to offer more help to troubled Asian nations when leaders of the two continents hold a summit next month in London but would insist on "responsibility," a senior French diplomat said.
"The Europeans feel that their future, their prosperity is at stake so they are ready to extend help," Francois Dopffer, director for Asia and Oceania at the French foreign ministry, said in an interview here over the weekend.
He said after holding talks with Singapore officials that European "solidarity" in the crisis must be matched by Asian "responsibility" in reforming troubled economies requiring external help.
"Because otherwise, you can put billions of dollars into Asian economies, and they will be wasted. Only Asian economies can help themselves, by taking the necessary steps. If they show responsibility, they can be assured that there will be a steady flow of help," he said.
Singapore and France are the key countries behind the Asia- Europe Meeting (ASEM), which held its first summit in Bangkok two years ago. ASEM is aimed at forging closer inter-continental links similar to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum which bonds Asia with the Americas.
ASEM's April 2-4 London meeting is expected to be dominated by the financial crisis which has shaken Asia's once booming economies since mid-1997.
"If the Asians show responsibility, they will have no difficulty in convincing the developed countries which are in a better situation presently to send money, technical advice, expertise, open their markets and so on because it's a common interest.
"If there's no responsibility and the money disappears, and nobody knows where, the taxpayers in Europe or in America or in Japan say, 'No!'" he said.
Foreign creditors have praised Thailand and South Korea for carrying out painful reforms in exchange for bailouts from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but expressed impatience with Indonesia's perceived foot-dragging.
Dopffer was speaking before Indonesian President Soeharto stepped up a showdown with the IMF on Sunday when he indirectly criticized the reform program linked to a 40-billion-dollar bailout.
Ahead of ASEM's London summit, European diplomats have been stepping up their profile in Asia amid perceptions that Europe may not be doing as much as the United States to help the region in its time of need.
Dopffer sought to dispel this view, noting the heavy contribution of European nations to the IMF on top of bilateral support for troubled countries.
He cited estimates that the Asian crisis would shave half a percentage point off an earlier forecast of 3.5 percent economic growth for France this year, and said "tens of thousands" of European jobs in such industries as textiles and footwear would be affected by cheaper Asian exports due to devaluation.
"We are in the same boat, and if we want to stop that crisis we better coordinate our efforts," he said. "We have to be helpful, and the Asian economies have to be responsive."
"The big danger in this crisis is that from an Asian crisis, it becomes an emerging markets crisis. This would have much more, much larger effects on the world economy," he said.
Last week, a special envoy of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose country holds the EU presidency, carried the same message on the need for reforms in a tour of Asian countries, including Indonesia.